Wednesday 30 December 2009

On this day...










English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley married novelist Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in 1816.Shelley's second wife, Godwin followed 16 year old Harriet Westbrook, with whom Shelley eloped and had a child. Three years later, he abandoned her in favour of Godwin, and their subsequent marriage came only weeks after Westbrook's suicide. Godwin helped to edit and promote her husband's works, yet was a successful writer in her own right. The Shelleys, Lord Byron, John William Polidori and Claire Clairmont famously spent a summer in Geneva where Mary conceived the idea for her novel 'Frankenstein'. The couple had four children together.

No comments:

Post a Comment